I’ll fight for everyone in Belfast city, says world title hopeful Tennyson
ON A chilly October morning carrying the promise of winter, it is all brightness and light in Belfast’s Kronk gym at the back of Duncairn Arts Centre. Here, off the Antrim Road, they are composing a Rocky story all of their own.
Tony Dunlop, who has run this gym for more than two decades, is putting James Tennyson through his final paces ahead of his world title shot in Boston’s TD Garden next weekend. The likeable 25-year-old from Poleglass, a sprawling working-class townland on the outskirts of West Belfast, faces IBF super-featherweight champion Tevin Farmer, a stylish southpaw from Philadelphia on the same card as Katie Taylor.
‘From the moment a fighter first steps inside the ring, this is the one thing that they have in common. Everyone dreams of becoming a world champion,’ states softlyspoken Tennyson. ‘I am fortunate enough to get the chance to realise that dream and I’m going to take it.’
The rise of the big-punching Belfast native has gone under the radar but he possesses the sort of story we should all get behind. Born in 1993, he was raised with his siblings Saoirse and Sean by their mother Sharon. His parents split up when he was a baby. His mother is Catholic. His father, Andrew Smith, is Protestant. Northern Ireland was a different place in the early 1990s and the strain of having a relationship across the divide took its toll.
He remains conscious of his background. Like Barry McGuigan more three decades ago, he will fight for a world title with a white dove woven into his shorts. He is determined that he is winning the world title for both sides of the community in the North.
He got to know his dad – who settled in Scotland – in his teens; they now enjoy a good relationship. ‘I plan to visit him after this fight, with the world title belt,’ he proclaims. ‘I am fighting next week for everyone in Belfast and I hope that everyone can get behind me because when I step into the ring next week, I will be fighting for everyone.’
He may be quiet but there is steel in his words. He wants to emphasise that he believes becoming world champion is his destiny, even though he only discovered his calling in life because Sharon was looking for some way to burn energy off her son.
‘My mother sent me to the local boxing club when I was seven. I had a bit of a temper on me,’ he smiles now. ‘So, she sent me down there, as a way of throwing some shape on me, giving me a bit of discipline. It was probably a way of keeping me out of trouble but from the first day I was in that gym, something clicked. I just loved it. It was what I was born to do.’
Over the next decade, a few Ulster and All-Ireland titles fell his way. By the time he turned 18, he knew that he wanted to be a professional. Someone put him in touch with Mark Dunlop, who is now his manager. ‘
He approached me when he was 18. He was only this wee slip of a fella,’ Dunlop recalls. ‘I remember thinking that he should go away for a couple of years, build himself up and get a bit of experience.’
Dunlop had his ear to the ground and heard that Tennyson went off to an amateur multi-nations tournament in Portugal representing Ireland. ‘He won gold there, knocking all of his opponents out. I couldn’t wait to get him back and sign him up.’
Dunlop contacted Tony Dunlop (no relation) about training Tennyson for the pro ranks. Tony had set up the Belfast boxing club in 1996, a cross-community club in North Belfast that eventually linked up with the legendary Kronk gym in Detroit. Andy Lee and current world champion Ryan Burnett had passed through his hands. Tennyson may become the third world champion he has worked with.
He made his professional debut in September 2012, knocking out Fikret Remuziev. He would go on to win his next seven bouts, six via knockout, before he had his first test of character.
On the undercard of a show at the Odyssey Arena headlined by Carl Frampton, he was matched with Latvian journeyman Pavel Senkovs, who had lost 67 of his previous 69 bouts. It was supposed to be an easy step up the ladder. But disaster struck.
‘It didn’t even enter my head that I might lose. We clashed heads at the start of the second and he caught me flush. The next thing I remember I was on the canvas. I was heartbroken.’
All boxers lose. It is how they respond to it that reveals their character.
After a hiatus of six months, Tennyson came back and won his next eight bouts. In April 2016, he challenged Ryan Walsh for the British featherweight title. Drained by a drastic weight cut, he was stopped in the fifth round.
Another rethink. He decided to move up to the next division. He hasn’t looked back. He beat Declan Geraghty to claim the Irish super-featherweight title in April 2017. A few months later, he climbed off the canvas, after being decked in the second round, to beat Martin Joseph Ward to win the European superfeatherweight title. That opened the door to Boston next weekend.
‘This is what it all boils down to. This is what you want out of boxing, to fight for a world title. It has been a bumpy road, but I have got to where I want to be. And all I am thinking about in the past few weeks is how I am going to be world champion,’ he insisted
Tennyson’s partner Carli Livingstone is expecting their first child in January and the fighter believes by then he will be super-featherweight champion of the world.